Course philosophy

Radio 101 is a seminar-style course on the basics of radio astronomy. The class is designed to appeal to beginners interested in learning what radio astronomy can do and how it works, as well as to more “seasoned” students wanting to develop a stronger understanding of the basics.

Course logistics

Each class will cover one or two fundamental topics in radio astronomy.

Readings will be provided ahead of time. They are designed to be short enough for everyone to read, thorough enough to discuss for a full class period, and basic enough for a neophyte radio astronomy student to understand.

Everyone should read the suggested material before class.

Class participants (students, postdocs, faculty) will sign up to present the material covered in the week's readings.

Speakers can and should seek out the organizers when questions come up during talk preparation.

There will be two 25-minute talks per class, followed by discussion.

Experts in the day's topics are encouraged to attend.

Suggestions and interjections from the audience should be encouraged when speakers get stumped, though these interjections should be helpful, not hostile.

Board work is encouraged; slides with pictures only are okay.

Suggestions for improvements are welcome! In particular, if you know of a fabulous reading that clearly and concisely describes a fundamental topic, or think we have left something critical out of the syllabus, please let us know.

Resources

Note: many of these resources are on reserve in the Physics & Astronomy library. Click here to go to the “Course Reserves” page on OskiCat, and then type in “Astronomy 250” and click on the “Bower, G.” option to find the reserved books. Others are available online, and will be linked to this wiki page. There are also several copies of these resources in the department (you should not have to buy books unless you want to!)

CARMA calibration example 1: Click here for a high-quality CARMA observation, exhibiting T_sys vs. time, gain amplitude vs. time, and bandpass amplitude vs. channel. There is also phase information, which will be applicable once we get to interferometry.

CARMA calibration example 2: Click here for a CARMA observation that would have been good had it not been for a baseline error, which caused huge phase slopes across the bandpass. Appropriate for interferometry.